Benito Gerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro: Champion of experimental scienceShow full item record
Title | Benito Gerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro: Champion of experimental science |
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Author | Anderson, Richard Glenn |
Date | 1970 |
Genre | Dissertation |
Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
Abstract | From 1725 until 1760 a Benedictine monk at Oviedo, Benito Geronimo Feijoo y Montenegro, wrote prolifically in an attempt to dispel the ignorance and superstition of fellow Spaniards. In great works such as his Teatro critico universal he denounced the widespread preoccupation with metaphysics, astrology and other ridiculous matters. Informing his readers of the backwardness of Spain, he urged them to benefit from growing scientific knowledge of the trans-Pyrenees world. This study of Feijoo's championship of experimental science is a narration of his struggle against absurd tradition and delineates his ideas and attitudes as a scientific reformer. It assesses the merit and significance of Feijoo's scientific thought. The evidence indicates that Feijoo was largely successful in his task. Overcoming formidable opposition to his ideas, he won great fame and contributed significantly to the empirical study of medicine, agriculture and the natural sciences. His Baconian and Newtonian ideals became those of numerous Spanish universities, medical schools and scientific academies. Many of his proposals were bases of the eighteenth-century intellectual "revolution" in Spain, particularly during the latter part of the century. Feijoo's ideas were effective factors in the Spanish eighteenth-century revolution. Certainly extraordinary intellect and erudition, coupled with tremendous courage, patriotism and humanitarianism, served to make him one of the most dominant personalities of his century. During Feijoo's epoch, moreover, many Spaniards--the royal family, priests, educators, physicians, scientists and members of scientific societies--shared his concern for decadent Spain and his enthusiasm for scientific progress; they provided him with a highly influential group of supporters. Finally, Feijoo demonstrated to xenophobic Spaniards that the scientific ideas of foreign "heretics" often proved valuable; and with his unique blend of Baconian, Cartesian, Newtonian and Thomistic concepts, he reconciled trans-Pyrenees thought with Spanish Catholicism. Feijoo was an advocate of science rather than a practicing scientist. Lacking time, training and equipment for experimentation, he relied upon others for almost all his information. As a result he accepted their errors, and at times his own Aristotelian background colored his views. His greatest contribution to posterity was not his scientific thought but his empirical ideal and his efforts to instill in his countrymen a scientific attitude toward natural phenomena. |
Link | https://repository.tcu.edu/handle/116099117/33512 |
Department | History |
Advisor | Boyd, Maurice |
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Doctoral Dissertations [1488]
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